{"title":"Theory of Mind Ability and Socioeconomic Status, a Study of Street-Connected Children and Adolescents in Ecuador","authors":"Graham Pluck","doi":"10.3390/PSYCH3020008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Family socioeconomic status (SES) is closely associated with cognitive ability in children and adolescents. However, most of the research has come from high-income countries. There is only limited research on ‘street children’, who represent an aspect of low-SES particularly associated with low- and middle-income counties. The current research in Quito, Ecuador, compared a group of street-connected youth with a not street-connected control group on two different measures of theory of mind ability and verbal comprehension. Initial analysis revealed that the street-connected sample scored significantly below the level of the control sample for verbal comprehension. For the main analysis, street-connected youth were matched to control participants for age, sex, and verbal comprehension scores. The street-connected sample was found to perform significantly below the control sample on both measures of theory of mind. Furthermore, worse performance appeared to be linked to severity of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within the street-connected sample. In conclusion, the association of relatively poor verbal comprehension with street-connectedness is consistent with existing research from high-income countries on SES gradients and cognitive development. In contrast, theory of mind ability, a core aspect of social cognition, may be particularly linked to the street-connectedness form of low SES that exists in many low- and middle-income countries.","PeriodicalId":20746,"journal":{"name":"Psychosomatics","volume":"3 1","pages":"72-84"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.3390/PSYCH3020008","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychosomatics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/PSYCH3020008","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Medicine","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Family socioeconomic status (SES) is closely associated with cognitive ability in children and adolescents. However, most of the research has come from high-income countries. There is only limited research on ‘street children’, who represent an aspect of low-SES particularly associated with low- and middle-income counties. The current research in Quito, Ecuador, compared a group of street-connected youth with a not street-connected control group on two different measures of theory of mind ability and verbal comprehension. Initial analysis revealed that the street-connected sample scored significantly below the level of the control sample for verbal comprehension. For the main analysis, street-connected youth were matched to control participants for age, sex, and verbal comprehension scores. The street-connected sample was found to perform significantly below the control sample on both measures of theory of mind. Furthermore, worse performance appeared to be linked to severity of symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within the street-connected sample. In conclusion, the association of relatively poor verbal comprehension with street-connectedness is consistent with existing research from high-income countries on SES gradients and cognitive development. In contrast, theory of mind ability, a core aspect of social cognition, may be particularly linked to the street-connectedness form of low SES that exists in many low- and middle-income countries.
期刊介绍:
The mission of Psychosomatics is to be the leading psychiatry journal focused on the care of patients with comorbid medical and psychiatric illnesses. The scope of Psychosomatics includes original research, review articles and clinical reports that address psychiatric aspects of medical illnesses and their management. Areas of particular interest include: the effect of co-morbid psychiatric conditions on the management of medical illness; the psychiatric management of patients with comorbid medical illness; educational content for physicians and others specializing in consultation-liaison (C-L) psychiatry; and, the provision of psychiatric services to medical populations, including integrated care.